Surfing the Web last holiday season, Thomas Blauvelt decided to treat himself to a Christmas present: an autographed copy of Tom Wolfe’s latest novel, “A Man in Full,” advertised on Barnesandnoble.com.
The experience turned out to be anything but merry. After several weeks, Blauvelt still hadn’t received the book. He zapped off a complaint via e-mail. In response, he got a canned e-mail thanking him for his business and informing him that the book was on its way.
He waited and waited. He sent the company about 10 more e-mails–each more incendiary than the last. In return, he got the same boilerplate reply.
Finally, in utter frustration, he phoned the customer service hot line. “The person on the phone had no record of my problem,” said Blauvelt, a 35-year-old lawyer from Manhattan.
A total of four months later, he was informed that Barnesandnoble.com no longer stocked autographed copies of the book and he would just have to make another selection.
“I haven’t done a lot of shopping on the Internet because of this experience,” Blauvelt said. “It really soured me.”
This holiday season, Web retailers are working overtime to make sure customer-service horror stories like Blauvelt’s remain a thing of Christmas past.
Their performance could be a litmus test for the future of e-tailing. Sites with minimal glitches and maximum responsiveness could win customers for life, analysts believe, while those with problems might not have a second chance to prove themselves.
It’s an especially crucial time for e-tailers because the number of Christmas shoppers on the Web is expected to explode. According to a new report by Internet research Jupiter Communications, consumers will spend an estimated $6 billion on-line this holiday season, or nearly double what they shelled out a year ago.
Fogdog Sports, an on-line retailer of sporting goods, is preparing for the holiday rush by giving all 95 employees–from the president to the mail-room guy–a crash course in customer service. That way, if the company’s nine official customer service representatives are swamped, someone can step in quickly to pick up the slack.
Fogdog in Redwood City uses a software package from Kana Communications to manage the hundreds of customer e-mails it gets each day. The software automatically can direct a customer e-mail to the appropriate person so that it is answered quickly and accurately. For example, if a customer has a question about what kind of hiking boots to buy, the message will be routed to the customer service rep specializing in outdoor activities.
“People shop on-line because they are strapped for time and are looking for more convenience,” said Tom Romary, vice president of marketing at Fogdog. “Customer service is integral to the on-line experience. If we can’t meet expectations, then we are in the wrong business.”
Of course, this could mean investing millions of dollars in new customer service technologies as well as in personnel costs. For some, this may run counter to the traditional notion of an e-commerce company as a lean operation with minimal overhead and limited labor requirements. But a growing number of Web outfits are singing a new tune–namely, if they spend more on customer service, customers will spend more on them.
“Successful Web companies are more focused on customer service than they are on selling stuff,” said Bob Chatham, an analyst with Forrester Research. Still, too many e-tailers are ignoring customer service outright, Chatham added.
Some of the more disappointing examples, he said, are well-known brick-and-mortar retailers like J. Crew and Victoria’s Secret, which also sell their products on-line. These companies do not allow customers to return purchases made over the Web to their physical stores. Instead, consumers must pack up the merchandise themselves and ship it back.
“That’s a major no-no,” said Christopher Lochhead, chief marketing officer at Internet consulting firm Scient. “Customers want to be treated the same, whether it’s on the Web, in a store or on the phone. Businesses that don’t have these things tied together will get killed.”
RightStart.com, a new Web company in Westlake Village near Los Angeles that sells child-care products such as baby seats and personal playgrounds, is determined to be around for the long haul. “Seamless customer service is the key to our survival,” said Gerald Mitchell, executive vice president of RightStart.com.
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When consumers order an item from the Web site, they immediately get a message telling them that items can be returned hassle-free to the nearest brick-and-mortar Right Start store, of which there are 45 across the country. Consumers receive a map to retail outlets within a 20-mile radius of their home address. The company said it provides clear instructions for customers who need to return items by mail.
Shelley Taylor, a consultant in Palo Alto, Calif., could have used that kind of service when she bought a Palm V electronic organizer from the ValueAmerica Web site two months ago. The product arrived in a timely fashion, but Taylor had to return it because it was not the version she ordered. That’s where she ran into problems.
“There were no instructions in the box about how, or even where, to send it back,” she griped. “There wasn’t even a phone number.” She finally tracked down the customer service number on the Web site and then waited 20 minutes on the phone before getting an agent who could help.
“I would have thought there’d be tremendous improvements in retail Web sites by now,” Taylor said. “But that’s not the case.”
Most Internet shoppers would agree with her. A recent study by Forrester Research found that about 70 percent of all shopping carts are abandoned on the Internet. That means consumers start the buying process but for a variety of reasons leave a site before making any purchases. Of course, some people are just window shopping, but analysts believe that e-tail sites are still too frustrating for consumers and simply do not provide an engaging experience.